The Art of Losing

While we've been travelling, things have inevitably gone missing. Jacob left his hat in a Thai restaurant in Melbourne, I left mine in a hostel in Puerto Natales. 10,000 Chilean pesos fell out of Jacob's pocket, and 50 Peruvian soles were given to a man who asked for money at a church (before the pastor of the church told us we shouldn't have given it to him). Jacob's glasses are gone, my sandals fell out of my bag in a bus in Colombia, and first one and then the other of the temples from Jacob's sunglasses detached themselves. These are material things, and sometimes our reactions to losing them feel overwrought. Perhaps it is because we brought each item we own with intention, envisaging that it would last us all six months. Perhaps it is because we are travelling on a tight budget and any loss feels like a dent in that. Or that with few things in our backpacks, they take on a greater importance.

I keep thinking of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, One Art, which I first heard in Junior College. It begins: 'The art of losing isn't hard to master; / so many things seem filled with the intent / to be lost that their loss is no disaster.' In her list of things to practice losing, she begins with something small and material (door keys) and something small and immaterial (the hour badly spent), then bigger and more abstract things: places, and names.

Perhaps all these small losses are preparations for the big loss that will come with migration. We've now booked our flight to the UK. We know the day we arrive, and little else since jobs and locations are still up in the air. I expect there will be some living with Jacob's Dad, which will involve sourdough, jammy eggs, photos of Jacob and Izzy when they were little, and possibly dance parties under his kitchen disco ball (all of which I highly approve of). I also expect there will be days where my heart feels like it's breaking, and going back to that feeling of being covered by a blanket of sadness chills my heart. The other side of the grief of loss is love, they say, and I am lucky to have so much of that on two islands separated by a twelve hour flight. 

And I remember, I remember, the cracks that break through the grief eventually. The unexpected joys of laughter, the wonderment of a new place, the return of smells after winter. The re-making of myself as I tested the waters of what made me, me. I am turning thirty, and there will be newness and joy that accompanies the ongoing heartache. In church today, we heard a sermon about birds. The pastor, a mennonite woman from North Carolina, spoke about how birds both nest and migrate, and how God is found in both the seasons of putting down roots, welcoming people into a stable home, and finding community, as well as in seasons of shift and change, when 'home' is changing its meaning and you find yourself a guest. Jacob and I both felt like the sermon could have been written just for us (not least because of the pastor also mentioned the fantastic game, Wingspan) 

That said, our travel has taken a turn for the slower, and in this more relaxed pace I've found a lot of joy. Today we went for a long, slow run, had breakfast, went to church, and came back for leftovers from yesterday's dinner, football highlights, writing and reading in the space of our rented room. Somehow it felt like Sundays back in Jalan Hang Jebat, when we had a routine and rhythm and home. The feeling of home, in radically different circumstances, and a blessing all the same.

One Art
Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.